Hey everybody out there! This is my first post on Hotrodders.com> I'm hoping sombody out there can help me out I need to know whether i need center or off cet oval washers on the rims im trying to install on my trucks is therre some where I can look up which are the right ones????????

what kind of rims are they. i would guess there cragar sine that is the most common for unilugs. post a pic or the make and brand of wheel that will help. also what type of vehicle there going on. or at least the bolt pattern. chevy is 5 on 4 3/4 ect...

unilugs are ok as long as you hand tighten them first so they are all cenetered properly than torque em last, and recheck after a day or two.

I have never had an issue with unilugs except they are a little tougher to get on. I have never broken one or had one come loose. As with ALL wheels, they should be torqued and re-check once in a while. This is even more true for aluminum wheels. Has anyone actually had an issue with them.

I had a V8 Astre with unilug slotted aluminum wheels on it. The only time I had a problem was when a Mechanic that did a break job on the car didn't tighten the right front wheel properly. It is hard to figure out what he did. He either did not tighten any of the bolts or he tightened them up with the washers turned sideways. Regardless I was going down the road at about 60 miles per hour when I heard a tinkling sound from the right front tire area. When I pulled over all the lugs where loose but they were all still there and I just tightened them back up and was on my way. Other than that time no problems.

I lost one on a 72 Nova years ago, the left rear. It loosened up and came off before I had a chance to pull over. When the left rear dropped and the car was sliding on the traction bar the tire passed me at 65+ miles and hour. It went for over a hundred yards down the highway before entering the trees. I had a tough time finding that wheel-it's amazing how far into the trees it went. It's a good thing there wasn't any oncoming traffic for it to hit. And Thank God the traction bars were on the car otherwise the rear brake would have been toast.
I've had friends that have also lost unilug wheels. One of them rolled a GTX at over 80 mph when an ET unilug mag came off. There was some major injuries in that wreck and also a lawsuit afterwards.
The problem is if these wheels loosen up several times then get retorqued they take on some wear in the washer and lugnut area which causes the alignment to eventually be poor. If the alignment isn't right they will eventually loosen up again and again.
A friend of mine just went through this with a customer car. The car is a 64 Impala and has unilug Cragar SS mags on it, the rims are like new and the car has vibrations and poor drivability, just not smooth. The wheels were balanced but the problem didn't go away. Then he pulled a set of wheels off of another car and tried them, the problem disappeared, car drove smooth with no problems. The unilug mags were the problem. Personally I wouldn't run them, junk IMO.

Like anything else on a vehicle, if its not installed properly it is going to be problems. The problem is more common on hotrods since they use a lot of "non-standard parts". There a a lot of real good mechanics out there and a lot of hackers also. Unfortunatly a lot of people work on there own hot rods and dont have the expertise to be sure things are safe. This is a great hobby and there are a lot of people into it. Try to find someone with experience to help if you are unsure. This is imperitive if you are dealing with brakes,steering and other safty eqipment.

Just my.02, It has been years since I have dealt with uni-lugs and IMO they should have been outlawed long ago. Just because someone has used them successfully does not mean they are safe or trouble free for everyone and there are just too many horror stories about these things to ignore. The odds are they will work ok if they are torqued right but history has shown that this is not always the case and the results from a failure can be catastrophic so why take the chance? A couple of examples listed here, but how many thousand more you will never hear about? Most of these are minor inconveniences but far too many involved auto and personal damage and many law suits have just about ended their sales and thankfully we are seeing fewer of these things on the road today. Think about what could happen and ask your self if it is worth it to take the chance however small it may be. I guess I have said too much already so I will not get into my experience with these things but I will try to discourage anyone from using them every chance I get.

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